336 SIR RODERICK I. MURCHISON'S ADDRESS— AUSTRALIA. [May 23, 185?. 



condition of the saline tracts l^ang between 32° 30' and 31° of lati- 

 tude, an -unaided colonist, Mr. M'Dougall Stuart, a former companion 

 of Sturt, passed rapidly beyond all these saline tracts and discovered a 

 large, well-watered, and more elevated region to the north-west. As 

 soon as he ascertained the existence of a permanent supply of fresh 

 water at Andamoka, in south latitude 30 J°, and had thus secured a 

 retreat, he dashed on to the north and north-west, and soon fell in 

 with numerous gum-creeks, containing streams which flowed from 

 hills ranging from south-east to north-west, and further ascertained 

 that large portions of this region were well grassed and admirably 

 adapted for settlement ! 



The Governor of South Australia, Sir E. G. Macdonnell, states 

 that the extent of this newly discovered available land amounts to 

 from 1200 to 1800 square miles, and has rightly named the principal 

 waterparting, Stuart Eange. His Excellency then adds that the 

 House of Assembly of South Australia had presented an address 

 to him, requesting that the necessary steps should be taken for 

 granting Mr. Stuart a fourteen years' lease of 1500 square miles 

 of the new country. 



When we look to the fact, that this explorer had, in the first in- 

 stance, to get through the southern saline desert between the 

 sea and those interior lands — that he was accompanied by one 

 white man, Foster, and a black man only, and that his compass 

 and watch were his only instruments, we cannot too highly applaud 

 his success, and the Council of this Society has, therefore, well 

 judged in awarding to him a gold watch in honour of such highly 

 valuable discoveries. 



Not only did Mr. M'Dougall Stuart define the northern portion of 

 this new and fertile region, but before he returned by a most daring 

 and perilous route to the coast on a meridian far to the west of his 

 line of advance, he also ascertained the southern limit of all the 

 available land. 



Nothing which I have read of in Australian travel more strikingly 

 displays the bold and undaunted spirit of adventure, than when 

 Mr. Stuart had reached the southern limit of the fresh-watered 

 country, and ascended a hill near Mount Espy to look south- 

 ward over the country between him and the sea, he descried 

 nothing but a vast saline desert through which (his provisions 

 being almost exhausted) he must pass. Nothing daunted by that 

 dismal prospect, or the great privations he would have to suffer, 

 he regained the seashore, and travelling along it, once more found 



